Dreamweaver Stencils ...."To Die For"

This month I have had a great time working with the new dies. ....Yes, it's been an extravaganza of creativity from the wonderful "Dream it UP" team on using the stencils and dies; presenting new ideas and concepts; and of course extremely innovative creations. I have loved every minute of seeing what they have been blogging about this month. Also we have had a good following in spite of all the summer vacations happening.

A couple of weeks ago I worked with the owl die (DG751) every day for a week, so if you missed out please look back to learn more. Click HERE to see how I made a very similar card to this one.The creation that you see here was a by-product of that week of craziness. This week's blog is really not about this die but rather the one inside the card shown below. However, I did one thing differently on this card than the one I created a couple of weeks ago. The main difference with this owl is that the papers that I used were so busy that I decided to take an 01 micron pen (30181) and trace the outlines of the design, to make it "pop" a bit. Here is a picture of the inside:

I told you last week that I would share more about our dual alphabet die. Last Thursday, I took a picture of the caddie and since then have discussed with my team here at Dreamweaver how they would use this system. Of course there are as many ways to use this as there are crafters, but here are a few suggestions and pictures to give some ideas...by the way leave me a comment as to how you might use this caddie. I am really a newbie at die-cutting and very excited about learning more.

The caddie consists of a box with a base and lid measuring about  4 1/2" x 9" inches. (The base is marginally smaller.)  The base holds 13 smaller boxes that are each approximately the size of a deck of playing cards. 

The caddie will have a magnetic sheet for the dies with an adhesive backing. All you need to do is remove the release paper to reveal the sticky backing and you are ready to place it where you want to on top of or inside the caddie.

In the first photo the magnetic sheet is placed on top of the caddie. For my needs I would like to place the magnetic sheet inside the lid. Notice that after the letter "O" four of the letters need to go sideways to fit all of them on the magnetic sheet.

Some of my help feel that they would rather keep the letters inside the smaller interior boxes along with the stored paper piecing die-cuts. If you want to use the 13 boxes only for the alphabet you would place three pieces in each one and it would come out evenly. There is also a question mark and an exclamation mark and an ampersand which I add to the last two alphabet pieces...eg. Y, Z, &, !, ?".

Rather than having labels I used a permanent marker to indicate which die-cuts and dies are in each box. I prefer this to using labels, but some of the team here said they would rather have a label. Also I decided that I'd rather store more alphabet pieces than three per box and use one box for all the numbers. 

This frees up the magnetic sheet to be used for other dies and then the extra boxes I can use for the die-cuts of the designs that work really well for paper piecing, as shown in the picture.

I never thought I would enjoy die-cutting as much as I do, because I love working with a stencil brush and paints. But choosing colors of paper and designing in conjunction with the matching stencils as well has been soooo much fun. Can't wait to start playing with the new designs that just arrived.  It will be a couple of weeks until our magnetic sheets arrive, so mid- August is our hope for release of this new dual alphabet system. Until then be sure to join our monthly challenge, next Thursday we will announce our two random winners of the "to die for" challenge. For the month of August Pam has given us the challenge of "August as an Adjective"...so start thinking of what awe inspiring and sophisticated creations you'll share with us. 

Visit my wonderful team listed below...almost everyone is playing along and our guest designer Terri Sproul as well. Each week her latest creation is my "favorite" piece yet. Give each of them some love in the way of a comment or two or three, it's what they live for, that's the irony this month...Is it "to die for" or "to live for"?

Dream It Up! (you're here)

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

Gill Wilson 

Lyn Bernatovich

Alison Heikkila

Kristine Reynolds

Kristi Parker Van Doren  

and

Terri Sproul (GD)

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